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Australian
aborigines -- Australian aboriginal music -- Australia
Australian
Aboriginal Music: Song with Didgeridoo
Australian Aboriginal
Music
General
The traditional music of
indigenous Australians holds a lot of meaning to their culture. Music is used
throughout an aboriginal's life to teach what must be known about their
culture, about their place in it, and about its place in the world of nature
and supernature. As a very young child, the aboriginal is encouraged to dance
and sing about everyday tasks. At puberty, s/he learns the first karma songs -
about totemic plants and animals of his/her clan and the history and mythology
of the group - which belong to his/her lineage and have specific melodic
formulas and modes that distinguish them from other group's songs. Embedded in
a purely oral tradition, the music is learnt by imitation and passed on without
reference to any written notations. In the bachelor's camp, the young man
learns more light-hearted songs which are the basic entertainment media for the
band. When he marries and enters further into group responsibilities, however,
it is the karma songs that are the central part of his education and his source
of strength in times of trouble. His maturity can be measured in the esoteric
knowledge he has acquired through song, and as an old man, he knows that his
honour is based partly on his mastery of the secret sacred songs of the band.
To the Australian
aboriginal, music is understood naturally and is an integral part of life. In
the west, by contrast, music tends to be separated from life. For example, a
Western music student must learn to "understand" a composed piece of
music, like a Beethoven symphony or one of Bach's works. This involves
dissecting the music into elements of individual study - form, rhythm, harmony,
melody and orchestration. The westerner can come to understand aboriginal music
also, if s/he is willing to learn its language and laws ans listen to it in
terms of itself. It cannot be compared to a Beethoven symphony because it has
nothing to do with it. Both, however, can be enjoyed once one knows what to
listen for in each.
Traditional Instruments
In constructing their
instruments, Aboriginal Australians use the resources at hand. Most of their
instruments fall into the idiophone class, where instruments consist of two
separate parts which are stuck together to give a percussive sound. Throughout
Australia, this kind of instrument takes many different forms. Of the
membraphones, or skinned drum types, there is only one example. There are no
chordophones, or string instruments; however in the aerophone, or wind
instrument class, one example provides an outstanding exhibition of musical
ingenuity.
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Category
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Instrument
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Details
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Idiophones
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Sticks
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Each singer holds a pair of wooden
sticks, one in each hand, and provides a percussive rhythm. One, long and
slightly flattened stick is generally grasped in the middle and held flat.
The other, more rounded and held towards the end, is brought sharply and
cleanly on to the first. The paired sticks can vary considerably in shape.
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Boomerang clapsticks
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These provide a similar function
as the sticks. At times they may be shaken so as to provide a continuous
rattle.
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Handclapping
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Handclapping and slapping various
parts of the body are used by singers of both sexes, sometimes as a
substitute for a pair of sticks.
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Set of percussion sticks
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Sometimes referred to
"gongs", the set of three or four variously-lengthed wooden sticks
hit with a stick are used only in Yabaduruwa ceremonies.
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Percussion tube
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A percussion tube, the
"hollow log drum" is used with the Ubar ceremonies. Other percussie
idiophones include a stick beaten on a shield, a stick beaten on another
stick lying on the ground, and the women's bark bundle hit on the ground.
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Rasp
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The Kimberley Tabi songs are
accompanied by a rasp. A notched stick, or the side of a spear thrower is
scraped by a second, smaller stick.
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Rattle
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Island style songs from Cape York
are accompanied by bunches of seed pods held in the hand.
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Membranophone
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Skin drum
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A single-headed hour glass shaped
drum, whose head is made from lizard or goanna skin, or on at least one
occaision the rubber from a tyre inner tube, is heard from Cape York, with
both traditional song types and island dance. The open end is sometimes
shaped like the mouth of a crocodile.
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Aerophones
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Didjeridu
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The didjeridu is usually formed
when a branch of a tree, naturally hollow, is further hollowed out by nesting
termites. Aboriginal Australians cut these branches to a suitable length
(approx. 1.5 metres), hollowing out both ends a little more and sometimes
smoothing the mouthpiece with gum. Blown with vibrating lips, the didjeridu
gives a fundamental note with a rich and complex harmonic series. Constant
air pressure is maintained by simultaneously blowing out through the mouth
and breathing in through the nose, using the cheeks as a reservoir.
Considerable stamina is required for this technique and a good didjeridu
player is considered capable of sustaining fast energetic rhythmic patterns
throughout a given song. A skilled player is highly respected and may travel
with a professional songman to enhance trade meetings or other interband
meetings.
The function of the didjeridu is
to provide a constant drone on a deep note, somewhere between D flat and G
below the bass clef. This drone is not a simple held note, but is broken up
into a great variety of rythmic patterns and accents by the skilful use of
the tongue and cheeks. Nor is it constant in timbre, for many different tone
colours are achieved by altering the shape of the mouth cavity and the
position of the tongue and by shutting off various parts of the anatomy which
act as resonating chambers for the human voice.
It is not, however, in the
manipulation of the droned fundamental, nor in the slight rise and fall of
pitch used to accent a rhythm, that the great skill of a didjeridu player
lies, but in his use of two entirely different notes, which are alternated in
rapid succession to form complex and fascinating cross-rhythms. These two
notes are not haphazardly chosen, but invariably are pitched a major tenth
apart, the upper note being the first overtone. The physical explanation for
this overtone being a tenth above the fundamental has not, so far, been
found; but probably lies in the fact that the tube is slightly and
irregularly conical. One would expect either the octave (for a conical pipe)
or a twelfth (for a cylindrical pipe) to result, but the actual interval is
never less than a tenth nor more than an eleventh.
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Researched
and written by Hans W. Telford
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